whats up with hawaii?
people have been asking constantly about why we spent two months in hawaii, lol, and also just how we afford to travel in general, so i figured i would write a post about my travel tips for young, poor people (like me!)
1. if you want to travel, you have to really want to travel. it isn’t cheap, and it doesn’t come easy. you have to actually save your money. when friends want to make plans, i normally don’t suggest eating out or getting our nails done. i usually shop at thrift stores, and NEVER at whole foods (this is very important for 20 year old girls, whole foods will entice you.) i also make sure i’m always working. even when things are busy, i never go without a job, because i never know when the opportunity will come up to do something AWESOME!
2. driving is MUCH cheaper than flying when it’s possible. luckily, tanner has a car that gets pretty good gas mileage, so it only takes us about $30 every 500-600 miles! (that’s pretty far for only $30- and if we split it, thats only $15 a piece) A 600 mile plane ticket would be around $200-400. yikes.
3. while on the road, don’t go to restaurants! it’s so easy to spend hours in a car and get a craving for red lobster, but if we gave into that every time, we’d run out of money real fast.
we go grocery shopping at aldis before a trip and getots of non perishables. Stuff for PB&J (or more recently PB&honey, yum!), trail mix or granola bars works. we also take our hydroflasks everywhere & fill up on ice water! biggest thing is, when you do get really hungry- WENDYS 4 for 4!!!! life changing. plus you can substitute the drink for a frosty so you get dinner and dessert all in one. plus wendys rocks. and free wifi. wow.
4. can’t stress this enough. sleep in your car. yes, it’s uncomfortable, but making it work will save about $100 a night. we’ve actually developed a technique for sleeping in the car that is FOOLPROOF! tanner in the front seat reclined with a nice pillow and feet on the dashboard. my feet are behind his reclined chair and i lay horizontal in the back seat! not as comfy as a hotel room, but i’ve slept through the night like that! also, you can park in any walmart or rest stop parking lot and stay overnight, it’s patrolled and safe! (and free!)
5. go places where you know people. tanner’s brother and his wife live in Hawaii, so when he had the opportunity to pick somewhere to intern, he picked there. they were gracious enough to let us stay there for FREE which helped us out a ton (tbh we could have never in a million years lived in Hawaii for two months because we are in college and poor) but when you know good people who live in cool places, it tends to work out. he worked at a hotel in downtown waikiki called the prince. it was really cool. i worked from home for a social media company. so yeah, hawaii was awesome. when we road tripped across the country, we planned our route based upon people we knew and could stay with. our friend jared let us stay with him for a week in texas. jared, shoutout, u rock.
6. the biggest tip i have for traveling is, stop spending your money on stupid things!!!! seriously. you don’t need to try 6 different beers in colorado. there are literally 14,000ft mountains- start walking up one. the world is awesome! go places where you can walk outside and be amazed, not places where the biggest attraction is shopping (ehm, vegas.) take pictures instead of buying souvenirs. and actually do stuff you normally wouldn't do. that’s pretty cliche, but seriously. one time we jumped off a 70 foot cliff. one time we stayed the night in a hippie commune. one time we jumped out of a plane. i’d rather do that then spend $87 on dinner and drinks.
well, those are my best tips for doing cool stuff without draining your bank account. you’ll never remember the nights you stayed in a nice hotel and ate at chilis :-) get out there peeps!
